Troopergate: The Personnel Board Report

The Alaska Personnel Board released its own Troopergate “report” this afternoon, clearing Gov. Sarah Palin — and everyone else on the planet — of violating the state’s ethics laws in the lead-up to the firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. The findings of the latest investigation were released without any specific details and (for now at least) has not included anything close to the documentation made available in last month’s Branchflower Report. So far, only the executive summary has been made available to the public.

As with the legislative investigation, the personnel board concluded that Palin was within her rights to fire Monegan for any reason whatsoever; however, the board challenged the legislative finding that Palin breached the Executive Ethics Act by using — and allowing others to use — the resources of the governor’s office to press for the removal of a state trooper against whom the family harbored a personal grudge. Indeed, the personnel board investigator, Tim Petumenos, insisted at today’s press conference that these such pressure “didn’t happen at all.” This latter assertion is particularly unusual, given the Branchflower report’s abundant detail regarding calls, e-mails and conversations initiated by the Palins or by staffers to Walt Monegan and other state officials on the subject of trooper Mike Wooten. Since the records of personnel board investigations do not have to be released publicly, it’s unlikely anyone will ever know much more about the evidence that served as the basis for today’s report. It’s also unlikely that the legislature is finished with the issue, so optimistic predictions — from, say, the Palin enthusiasts at Powerline — that the issue has been “laid to rest” are premature.

One wry detail from the personnal board’s executive sumarry:

These findings differ from those of the Branchflower Report because Independent Counsel has concluded the wrong statute was used as a basis for the conclusions contained in the Branchflower Report, the Branchflower report misconstrued the available evidence and did not consider or obtain all of the material evidence that is required to properly reach findings.

Given that Sarah Palin herself and several other state officials famously refused to cooperate with the Legislative Council investigation, the claim that the investigators failed to “obtain all the material evidence” isn’t particularly surprising.